The present invention relates to the general technology area of emergency response centers for handling incoming calls related to emergency events. More specifically, it relates to handling calls that have been queued.
Emergency Response Centers (ERC) (e.g. 911) typically employ Automated Call Distribution (ACD) centers to answer, queue, and dispatch calls to call handlers in the order in which they are received. With the recent proliferation of cell phones, the volume of calls to emergency services has increased dramatically and has challenged the existing infrastructure. On the positive side, when an emergency occurs, there are usually numerous people with cell phones who can alert emergency response personnel and call for help. On the negative side, when multiple people call to report the same emergency (e.g. a fire or a motor vehicle accident at a given location), the system can become flooded with callers tying up the center's phone lines.
What is needed is a technique for intelligently managing emergency queued calls so as to enhance the efficiency of responding to such calls.